Home Page Forums Prototype and Historical General Morley Bridge incident Reply To: Morley Bridge incident

#7065
bargetanika
Participant

Tferk, this 1968 engine 133 plunge was at a hand-cranked (by the train crew) E35 swing bridge across Bayou Teche at either Charenton or Oaklawn on the Iberia, St. Mary & Eastern extension of the former New Iberia & Northern, an obscure south Louisiana branch line. It was 65 lb. rail or lighter on sand ballast. I never saw a train on that line go more than 10 or 15 mph. I’ve heard speculation that the engine crew fell asleep. That train would have been there between 9 and 11 in the morning. It would have earlier passed my old high school like I mentioned in the GP18 post. That engine certainly just gently tipped down into the water after balancing on the fuel tank at rails end. It was not a high speed catastrophe, no one died. Although someone’s job certainly died.